A day after former national cricket captain Gyanendra Malla and official commentator of Nepal T20 Sachin Timalsena shed light on suspicious match fixing activities at the first ever official franchise cricket tournament organised by Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), the cricket governing body on Wednesday dismissed such information as baseless and misleading.

But speaking with the Post over phone, CAN acting secretary Prashant Bikram Malla said that the cricket governing body has some individuals on the list of suspects and they were stripped of their responsibility.

“The CAN has serious concern over baseless and misleading rumours about match fixing and spot fixing in the Nepal T20 League,” reads a statement issued by the cricket governing body. “CAN requests [all] to file a complaint of such match fixing with proof at its central office or the Anti-Corruption Unit of the T20 League. The CAN also urges not to spread such baseless rumours against the country and the Association.”

At a press conference on Tuesday, Malla, who is also the captain of Kathmandu Knights, revealed that a member of his team got a fixing proposal and they had reported it to the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) of the tournament.

Commentator Timalsena uploaded a video on his Facebook account and announced he’d disassociate himself from his role because of numerous suspicious activities on the pitch. He also alleged that Nepal T20 was now into the hands of corrupt people and fixers and it would hamper Nepali cricket.

Despite such revelation by a former national captain and official commentator, the cricket governing body issued a statement brushing off such suspicions.

“Some of the people are spreading rumours that the outcome of the whole tournament was fixed. But it is not like that,” Malla, the CAN acting secretary, told the Post. “We have doubts on some people and have also removed such suspects from their responsibility, though we don’t have concrete proof against them.”

Malla also added that they have had serious discussions with the ACU officials of the International Cricket Council and also Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police. “The CBI officials are monitoring all activities on and off the field,” he said. “We have also deployed our staffers at the team hotel to check if there are any suspicious activities.”

Alongside suspicions of fixing, the league is also beset by the participating teams’ violation of payment agreement with their players. As per the contract with the players, they should have been given 40 percent of the contract amount before the tournament and the remaining 60 percent during the tournament. But only Pokhara Avengers and Lumbini All Stars have handed 50 percent of their payments among the six teams.

The issue of non-payment would now be fixed, Malla said. “The players would get all the payments before the tournament wraps up. All the team owners are in contact with CAN and they failed to deposit the payments due to some technical issues,” he said. “CAN will take all the responsibility of payments.”